256 Meg RAM (this now seems to be the bare minimum required to make Windows useful)

20 Gig hard drive (50% used after only a few applications installed)

CD-R/W and DVD (the DVD is the only really cool thing I like)

Polk Audio

blah, blah blah

Windoze ME (a pox on humanity)

The "NEW" HP Pavilion N5295 laptop after the usability makeover

Same 850 Mhz Space Heater that it had before

256 Meg RAM (for some reason this seems roomy now)

20 Gig hard drive (50% used after dozens of applications are installed)

CD-R/W and DVD (the DVD is the only really cool thing I like)

Polk Audio

blah, blah blah

The same thing it was before, but now it is a 100% Linux system -- SuSE 10.0 Pro!

Amiga 2000
(This elderly piece of junk still runs circles around many computers.)

50 Mhz 68060

128 Meg RAM (gross overkill, even 16 Meg is overkill)

2 Gig hard drive (about 50% used after 10 years of programs are installed on it.)

CD-Rom

Picasso II graphics card

blah, blah blah

Amiga OS 3.x, Workbench 3.9

Walmart White Box

1.8 Ghz-ish AMD Athlon

512 Meg RAM

200 Meg on 2 hard drives (120G and 80G)

32x10x40x CDRW

SuSE Linux Professional 9.2, I'm a KDE kind of guy

Software:

PC Stuff

Notepad (yes, really)

99.5% of everything was just plain typed from a keyboard.
No bloated FrontPage meta-symbol nonsense.

Ulead Cool 3D 3.0

Used for most of the 3D graphics text.
Also good for making Windows crash and reboot the PC.

Ulead PhotoImpact 6.0

General image manipulation and also
cropping, converting, and optimizing the less than ideal GIF files made by Cool 3D

SoftLogik's PageStream 4.0

Real DTP software. Did the Davie GOP club's membership form in PDF.

Some Commercial Font Collection

I bought so many clip art and font CDs I really don't
remember where the western style font (called AllNight) used on the Davie GOP site came from.

I also have about a dozen other graphics and web things on the PC
that I haven't yet had the need to use, so they're not worthy of mention.
Not much PC software is worthy of mention, anyway.

Amiga Stuff

CygnusEd Pro

Like notepad, only it lets you edit huge files, search
and replace quickly, program complex macros...
ok, maybe it's not much like Notepad

Imagine 5.x

Miscellaneous 3D work that hasn't appeared on the web site yet.
I also have this on the PC, but it works better here.

Art Department Professional

Why do PC programs have to make it so difficult to
do something simple precisely? Cropping to exact pixel
dimensions for one.

SoftLogik's PageStream 4.0

Yeah, it's available for the Amiga, too.
And it prints better to PostScript than the Windows version.

Personal Paint
and
Deluxe Paint IV

PC programs are pathetic when working with low-color/palette-based
GIF images. Try to remove one stinkin, stray pixel in a full-blown,
multi-layered, pressure-sensitive, photo-imaging paint mostrosity on the PC.
I dare ya.

Linux Stuff

vi

Actually, vim. Syntax coloring is just so cool, ain't it?

Gimp 2.0

This is pretty nifty, though I still do drag things back
to the Amiga from time to time.

OpenOffice.org 2.0

This works so well, and its PDF output is so good that it has taken
over almost everything for desktop publishing.

I had been abused by MicroSoft products one
too many times. System and application crashes destroyed
my personal data. It was a job in itself to keep the system
"optimized" to work properly and maintain the virus protection
updates. I can tolerate a fair amount of abuse, but
having to blow away the laptop and reinstall everything from scratch
for the fourth time in a year exceeded even my high threshold for
pain and disgust with Windows.

So, in early 2002 the
"defenestration" of my computers began. It started by transitioning
all my custom code for web site maintenance
to GNU/Linux. It finally ended about a year and a half later
when OpenOffice.org worked better than MicroSoft Office.
About October 2003 the disk drive space wasted on Windows was recovered
after reinstalling Linux without a dual booting option.

Given all the entertainment provided by multiple,
repeated virus attacks on Windows over the past year (2004, 2005, pick any year Windows works the same any time),
I'm feeling more than a little satisfied with the decision. In the
last year I've not had to reinstall the OS and all the programs
on a computer due to virus or inherent instability of the OS as
was often necessary to survive with Windows.